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Nintendo Begrudgingly Acknowledges Wii U 3D Support

Owners of 3D TVs will find 3D support in the new console, but don't bank on Nintendo going out of its way to promote it any time soon.

Satoru Iwata: Now in TERRIFYING 3D!!!

Among console makers, Sony is the company seemingly most invested in the still fledgling 3D TV market, with multiple PlayStation 3 titles scheduled to take advantage of the technology in the future. Granted, a great deal of that might have to do with the fact that Sony makes 3D TVs, but hey, support is support, right?

As it turns out, Sony may have some 3D-enabled console competition in its near future. Sort of.

Speaking to the Mercury News, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata let it be known that the Wii U will also include support for those with fancy 3D televisions, albeit via least ringing endorsement you've ever heard from an executive talking about a feature contained within a new piece of console technology.

If you are going to connect Wii U with a home TV capable of displaying 3-D images, technologically, yes, it is going to be possible, but that's not the area we are focusing on.

When it comes to 3-D, we already have the 3DS, and each owner of the Nintendo 3DS is capable of viewing 3-D images. However, when it comes to the home console, it depends upon the availability of 3-D TV sets at home, which, unfortunately, is not expanding enough. And rather than pouring a lot of energy into that kind of area, with the Wii U we'd like to focus more on each Wii U owner being able to have an equal opportunity to enjoy it.

Well then, uh... get hyped? I guess?

Nintendo's stance on the situation does make some sense given the currently meager level of market penetration 3D TVs have in the average home. Adding in support almost sounds like a purely precautionary measure, just in case this 3D TV thing suddenly blows up big. And if it doesn't? Well, we can just pretend we never even had this little conversation, and go on about our 2D business as we always have, no worse for the wear.